django-microapi

A tiny library to make writing CBV-based APIs easier in Django.

Essentially, this just provides some sugar on top of the plain old django.views.generic.base.View class, all with the intent of making handling JSON APIs easier (without the need for a full framework).

Usage

from django.contrib.auth.decorators import login_required

# We pull in two useful classes from `microapi`.
from microapi import ApiView, ModelSerializer

from .models import BlogPost


# Inherit from the `ApiView` class...
class BlogPostView(ApiView):
    # ...then define `get`/`post`/`put`/`delete`/`patch` methods on the
    # subclass.

    # For example, we'll provide a list view on `get`.
    def get(self, request):
        posts = BlogPost.objects.all().order_by("-created")

        # The `render` method automatically creates a JSON response from
        # the provided data.
        return self.render({
            "success": True,
            "posts": self.serialize_many(posts),
        })

    # And handle creating a new blog post on `post`.
    @login_required
    def post(self, request):
        # Read the JSON
        data = self.read_json(request)

        # TODO: Validate the data here.

        # Use the included `ModelSerializer` to load the user-provided data
        # into a new `BlogPost`.
        post = self.serializer.from_dict(BlogPost(), data)
        # Don't forget to save!
        post.save()

        return self.render({
            "success": True,
            "post": self.serialize(post),
        })

Installation

$ pip install django-microapi

Rationale

There are a lot of API frameworks out there (hell, I built two of them). But for many tasks, they're either overkill or just too opinionated.

So django-microapi is kind of the antithesis to those. With the exception of a tiny extension to View for nicer errors, it doesn't call ANYTHING automatically. Other than being JSON-based, it doesn't have opinions on serialization, or validation, or URL structures.

You write the endpoints you want, and microapi brings some conveniences to the table to make writing that endpoint as simple as possible without assumptions.

I've long had a place in my heart for the simplicity of Django's function-based views, as well as the conveniences of django.shortcuts. microapi tries to channel that love/simplicity.

API Docs

https://django-microapi.rtfd.io/

Testing

To run the tests, you'll need both Pipenv, and Just installed.

$ just test

License

New BSD